


Together, Forever, (It's never too late)

by TheWordsInMyHead



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Island, F/M, Married Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, POV Felicity Smoak, Parent!Olicity, Protective Oliver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27533239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsInMyHead/pseuds/TheWordsInMyHead
Summary: Felicity just wants to enjoy a nice vacation with her husband, that's not too much to ask, right? It's their anniversary; it should be great, and it would be, if she could just get out of these restraints. Honestly, who gets kidnapped vacationing on a nearly deserted island?
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92
Collections: Olicity Clue





	Together, Forever, (It's never too late)

**Author's Note:**

> So here it is! Olicity Clue! I finally did it.... three months later, because, you know, I'm a mess like that. 
> 
> Truth talk, this has been sitting completed for almost a whole month, just waiting for it's last round of edit because I'm just not all that sure about it. It's my first time writing for them and that always makes me nervous, especially for Felicity because she has such a distinctive voice, so let me know what you think.
> 
> Oh and guess my person, place and thing! Thank you to the creators of this event, it finally gave me the push I needed to write for this fandom.

He slides his hands down her back, a little lower than is strictly acceptable out in public, but she’s not going to complain. Especially not when he finally closes the distance between them and presses his lips against hers. Wasn’t that the whole point of going to a nearly deserted island halfway across the world for this trip? 

There’s no one here to frown at the mayor getting handsy with his wife or anyone to judge her for being a professional CEO who also enjoys making out with her husband in semi public places. There are no PTA members to glare at her jealousy when he wraps his arm around her waist, pulls her close, and tucks his head into the gap of her shoulder, kissing down her neck. (Although, to be frank, she doesn’t care all that much when it’s them; her husband is hot, they _should_ be jealous.) 

They are free here to just be two people in love, spending an afternoon lazily by the pool. 

Or at least they are, but then Oliver hits that particular place behind her ear, making her insides squirm, and she lets out a moan, which, judging by the pointed cough from the older couple a few seats down from them, was just a little too loud. Oliver must think so as well because he pulls back despite her muffled complaints until he's back, sitting on the edge of his own lounge chair, smirking at her. 

Felicity takes in her husband, looking like some otherworldly being with his shirt off and the sun glinting on droplets of water still clinging to his skin from when he took a dip in the water a few minutes before, and feels a rush of anticipation flood through her. Five years of marriage, and she still feels just as much as she did the first time. Maybe more. Now, she knows what she’s looking forward to, and it’s so much better than what she used to imagine. 

“I’m hungry,” she tells him suddenly, wiggling in her seat and biting down on her bottom lip. 

“The food should be here any minute,” he tells her fondly. 

“French fries aren’t what I’m craving,” she tells him. It's clear that their neighbor has fully grasped her meaning if the snort is anything to go by, but Oliver still seems to be lagging behind, so she leans in closer and whispers seductively into his ear, “I was thinking something more along the lines of _dessert_.” 

He lets out a huff of laughter— it’s been years since they have had any reason to use the euphemism— but it quickly turns into a groan when she brushes her hand innocently across his shoulder, down his arm, before turning around to grab her sundress. She pulls it over her uncomfortably overheated body. 

She gives herself a second to breathe, only turning back when she hears Oliver shifting behind her, “Yeah, that’s a great idea. Let’s head back to the room.” 

“No,” she tells him, turning to look at him over her shoulder with a smirk on her lips while she ties up her dress. 

“No?” he questions adorably, a twitch of desperation to his tone. “Felicity,” he whines when she doesn’t take her answer back. 

Shrugging innocently, she gives him one last look over, barely resisting the urge to lick her lips, “You might as well wait for the food now. Get it and bring it back. I’ll be waiting.” 

_A little anticipation is still good after all_ , she thinks as she spins around on her flip flops, leaving him sitting there without another word. 

As she navigates the stone paths, buzzing builds under her skin, and she hastily starts to regret her actions. A little fun is all well and good— she’s a huge fan of fun, especially when it involves her and Oliver alone with a bed for hours on end— but she’s not actually sure she wants to wait to get it. The journey back to their secluded beach cabin— one of many and a huge selling feature of this island getaway— isn’t very long, and yet, she contemplates turning around multiple times, only stopping herself with the knowledge that he can’t be that far behind her. 

When she hears the sound of a branch snapping behind her, she has a split second to wonder if Oliver decided to follow her right away after all (hope that he did despite what she’ll tell him), and then the world goes dark.

&&&&&

“Slade,” Felicity says in a breathy whisper, her eyes finally focusing on the room around her.

The man in question eyes widen slightly in surprise as he looks at her with a new interest, “You know who I am?” 

“Hmm,” she answers distractedly as she attempts to figure out where she is. It looks like... a hut? She curses her dislike of contacts, squinting to try and make out the blurry space. There might be another person in here with them, or maybe it’s a chair. Why did she have to read that Lasik horror story? Clear eyesight would have been extremely useful right about now. 

It's dark, much darker than it should be for this time of day. Unless she was unconscious for longer than she thought. As subtlety as possible, she tests out the restraints on her arms and legs, hoping to move them to see how stiff they are, but it’s no use; whatever he used to tie her to the chair— she looks down in interest before she can stop the impulse. Zip ties? Really? How cliché— are holding her tight. 

She lets out a shaky breath, closing her eyes, and reminds herself that it’s going to be okay; she’s going to be okay. Besides, it’s not like she’s never been in this situation— okay, she hasn’t been in this exact situation, but she’s not a total newbie at being kidnapped. There was that time in college when she was mistaken/not mistaken for her online persona, and then a few years ago, when someone decided that the Queen family had to pay. She was taken... and then released a few hours later by the kidnappers' own volition, which totally was fair because, really, out of all the Queen family members to take, why her? She didn’t want that for Oliver or Thea or even Moria, but at least it would have made more sense. 

Squeezing her eyes shut, she attempts to reign in her thoughts before they truly get away from her. It’s a >i>problem, but not when she has the bandwidth to deal with right now. The point is, she can handle high stakes situations. She's the freakin CEO of her own company; she faces off against the most stubborn 3-year-old in the world on a daily basis. Hell, she’s married to Oliver Queen. 

She’s got this. 

At least until Oliver figures out where she is. 

When she opens her eyes again, Slade is staring at her intently. She looks back for a moment questioningly (he’s the one who grabbed her; this is his show) before finally realizing that he’s still waiting for an answer. “Oh, right, yes, of course, I know who you are. I mean, how could I not? Deathstroke—” 

Her brightly painted lips press together tightly, and she just prays that they will stay shut. Torture 101 in all the shows is not to give away additional information. Or maybe that’s for police interrogations? Evidently, it's been too long since she watched any TV shows that don’t have talking dogs in them. The _point_ is that she shouldn’t just be handing out information. 

For once in her life, she needs to not babble uncontrollably, and like really needs, not the totally valid but not actually life or death need she has whenever they are invited for dinner at the Manor. 

“Oliver told you about me?” 

She nods her head once. Good. Succinct. She can totally do this. 

That confidence lasts a total of five (very fast) heartbeats, and one threatening step forward before she the ramble of the century is let loose from her mouth without restraint. “Yeah, I mean, who could I not know who you are? You were— are? Is it are, or were? I think were— a big part of Oliver’s past. You know, even without the messy end. Crime brothers have a special kind of bond. The whole blood runs thicker than water? Well, when you're making blood run together, that’s an entirely different level of connection.” 

He blinks at her in stunned silence for a few moments, and she rubs her finger across the smooth metal of her wedding band before quickly stopping herself— it’s a nervous tick. One that she’s pretty sure those shows tell her to avoid showing. 

Still, even with the tell and the word vomit, she thinks it’s okay. Everything she said was information that he should have expected her to know. It’s pretty generic information about Oliver. Really, anyone with a decent grasp of google and the right motivation would be able to find. Deathstroke was part of a team; the Hood was also part of that team. One wouldn’t even need to know that the Hood was Oliver to know that. 

More importantly, she somehow managed to avoid revealing that she knew of the name Deathstroke long before she ever met Oliver. Everyone with any sort of understanding of the underground crime world knew of him, of them, and well, she wasn’t just anyone. She doesn’t like to boast because, really, being a hacker genius isn’t something you should tell people, but back in her prime, she would have been able to run circles around them, or rather, send them running in circles. And him knowing that would be bad— very bad. 

Nowadays, she is perfectly content just being Smoak Tech’s CEO, William and Mia’s mom, and Oliver’s wife (even when it gets her kidnapped on random beaches or random islands in the north china sea). 

“You know about Oliver’s past?” 

“I’m his wife,” she tells him blankly, for once not needing any other words to explain. 

“So?” 

“So?” Felicity echoes, indignation overriding the fear within her. “I know I’m blond, but I assure you I’m not dumb. We’ve been together for nearly seven years, married for five, a celebration that you so rudely interrupted, and it’s not like he was a part of everything with you for a few months. It was years of his life. _Years_. Everything that happened then shaped who he is today, so yes, I know. I’ve always known.” 

“You knew, and you still married him?” Slade asks, his eyes filling with disgust. 

“Can I have my glasses?” she inquires instead of answering, “I promise this whole evil villain shtick will work a whole lot better if you're not just a giant blob.” 

Angry radiates through him, and Felicity worries for a moment that she actually pushed too far, but then he stomps over to the edge of the hut, grabs something, and returns to her. He slides the glasses onto her face, and suddenly, the world becomes clear again just in time for her to catch the stormy expression on his face before he turns his back to her. 

“And did he tell you what he did?” 

“Yes,” she says slowly, thinking about the night that Oliver finally told her the full story. She remembers the way the thunder roared outside her windows, how he sat still as a statue, refusing to let her come closer, not wanting the comfort she could perhaps provide as he shared the horrid tale. 

“Then you should know that I’m not the villain of this story.” 

Once again, her lips thin into a line. She can see why Slade would feel that way; Oliver’s actions that day left a lot to be desired, and unfortunately, Slade was part of the fallout of those choices, but he wasn’t the only one. Shado, Sara, even Oliver, they all have felt the consequences of that night. 

“Okay, fair,” she admits after a moment, “although the whole kidnapping thing kind of works against you there— good guys don’t go grabbing women off of beaches and then tying them to chairs...” she trails off before amending, “At least not without their consent, and to be clear, I do not want to be here.” 

If Oliver wants to tie her to things, that’s an entirely different story, she thinks before catching sight of Slade’s face and pushing all thoughts of that away. Now is not the time. If her voice has a bitter edge to it when she continues, though, well, it’s not her fault. This trip was supposed to involve much more enjoyable activities than trying to convince someone that their revenge fantasies aren’t warranted. “Either way, just because you’re not a villain doesn’t make him one. You were a gang of elite criminals. You don’t get to live that life and then get to act shocked when it ends badly.” 

She nearly jumps when he lets out a dark chuckle, one rough bark of a laugh before turning to face her, “Badly! It didn’t end badly, Blondie, it was a god damn disaster. Sara will never be the same. Shado lost her life and I was left to rot in prison for a decade. All because of him. All because he was an arrogant son of a bitch who couldn’t be bothered to risk himself. You called me his brother? Well, because of him, I lost _everything_.” 

There’s a specific type of anguish in his tone, a certain kind of desperation that, when mixed together, breeds recklessness. Felicity can see the fire in his eyes, can spot the jerkiness of his movements, and it puts her on edge. It builds a different sort of desperation within her, “So what? He deserves to die for those mistakes?” 

“No.” 

Her eyes grow wide, and she instantly tries to backtrack, berating herself for forgetting her vow to keep her mouth shut, “Oh, then you totally shouldn’t do that. In fact, doing that would be bad. Very bad— or good. Yeah, you don’t want to kill him. He’s got great life insurance. It would actually be beneficial—” 

Felicity cuts herself off eventually, rubbing anxiously at her ring again and squeezing her eyes shut in the hope that it will help control her mouth. She can do this. It’s been at least 30 minutes by now. Oliver must have realized she was missing. He’ll be here soon. She just hopes that when he gets here, he doesn’t lose himself trying to get her back. 

“Well, I’m glad I can be of assistance then. Despite what you might think, I don’t want to cause you any pain,” he tells her, moving around the room, circling her in a way that makes her heart pound even more rapidly in her chest. She wants to open her eyes, even knowing that she won’t be able to completely follow his movements, but she doesn’t. Instead, she tries to focus on her breathing and ignore his words. It doesn’t work. “But I’ve been thinking about this moment for a year, planning it since the moment I was released, and I know that death isn’t enough of a punishment for him.” 

He continues, ranting on about why Oliver deserves to have everything (his job, his money, her, the kids, everything, and anything) taken away like a typical Disney villain, but her mind remains stuck on one tiny detail. While it could mean absolutely nothing, her mind is telling her that it does, and she’s learned to trust it. After all, it’s what allowed her to do all sorts of incredibly illegal things without being caught (like they were). 

He’s been out for a year. At least. He said that he was in for a decade, which means even with trial time and some margin of error due to him being vague with numbers, he should have been released over two years ago. Which leads to the question, why now? Why Lian Yu of all places? Why wait until they were on vacation? 

The questions continue to race around in her mind until suddenly, they are stopped short by the sound of persistent buzzing. Her phone. Which is in her pocket. The pocket of her sundress, which, wow, is she suddenly glad that she decided to put on to walk back to their cabana rather than just going in her bikini. The buzzing stops, and she tenses, only for it to start up again a second later, vibrating persistently against her thigh. 

Opening her eyes, she meets his eyes directly for the first time, “Can you untie me?” 

“Why on earth would I do that?” 

“So I can answer my phone.” He watches her blankly for a few moments before finally giving in to the impulse to roll her eyes. “Look, you’re not going to kill me. If you were going to do that, then we wouldn’t have had this lovely chat because evil monologuing aside, I don’t think you’re as stupid as most pop culture villains, which means you’re stalling. Again, I don’t think you’re hesitating to kill me— you’ve killed enough people that I doubt that’s an issue anymore. You could be waiting for Oliver to show up to kill me in front of him, but...” 

She trails off, looking at the man in front of her, not as he appears now, in armor with a sword across his back and hatred in his eyes, but the man he must have been back when Oliver met him for the first time. She looks and sees the man that Oliver has told her about; his mentor, his friend, the one who gave him direction when he had none, and knows that she hasn’t made a mistake letting her mouth run away from her again. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. You’re not that cruel, which means you’re just waiting for him to show up. I might as well speed the process along.” 

Slade holds her eyes for a moment before finally moving towards her, each foot landing with a heavy thump. He stops a step away from her, pulling a switchblade out of one of his pockets. She gulps in concern, but that concern quickly switches to confusion when he leans in to cut the ties around her wrists. Before he pulls back, however, he pauses to utter an ominous, “You’d be surprised Miss Smoak to know what I’m capable of.” 

She stretches out her joints slowly, surprised by how sore that had gotten, but then quickly moves to answer her phone when the persistent buzzing invades her consciousness again. She reaches into her pocket, venomously ignoring the way that her hand shakes as she moves only to nearly drop it when she sees who’s calling. 

“It’s my daughter,” she says softly, staring at the family picture of the four of them, the contact photo she set up for facetime with Mia’s tablet before they left, not wanting her not to be able to contact them while they were away. A lump starts to form in her throat for the first time since she woke up here. It stops buzzing, and she lets out a sigh of relief, not feeling up to faking it at the moment, but it doesn’t last long before the contact is once again flashing across the screen. Her eyes flick to Slade, wondering if he’s going to stop her from answering, but he makes no objections, instead just watching her intently. 

Decision made, she closes her eyes, pressing back the tears, pushes a smile onto her face, and then hits accept. Mia’s face fills the screen, the camera on her tablet far too close for Felicity to be able to see anything other than a mess of blond curls and a hint of a red sweater, but it’s enough to make the threat of impending tears more likely. Especially when she hears her little girl’s voice. 

“Mommy!” 

“Hello, Miss Mia,” she responds, smiling in spite of the situation as the camera is finally righted so that only the top of her daughter’s head is cut off. She’s going to back it through this; her and Oliver both. They are going to go home, back to their children, and everything is going to be alright. The confidence continues to grow inside her as she watches her daughter’s grin grow. 

“Hello!” she echoes enthusiastically before widening her eyes comically, trying to replicate the look she gives Oliver whenever she wants something. “Can I have a cookie? I’m asking instead of stealing.” 

“Where’s Aunty Thea?” Felicity asks, unperturbed by the sudden change or the seemingly randomness of the inquiry. She knows that this kind of behavior is normal for anyone Mia age, but she also suspects that it’s just the unique combination of her and Oliver’s genetics mixing together. Mia lets out a sigh of impatience, so Felicity forces herself to focus on the question, doing the time difference math in her head; it should only be like ten there. “Wait, why aren’t you in school?” 

“It’s snow’en,” Mia tells her, looking at her like she definitely should have known that, “Aunty Thee and Will are practicing.” Felicity doesn’t get time to ask what it is they are going before Mia has already moved on, “Whatcha doing?” 

She glances at Slade quickly, the reminder of the situation she’s in hitting her like a bucket of ice water. He tilts his head to the side, whether in judgment or interest or some other emotion that she’s not sure about, but says nothing for which she is grateful. She holds his eyes for a second, filling the weight of this all acutely before focusing back on Mia, who appears to be hanging upside-down off the couch. “I’m just waiting for Daddy.” 

“Oh, he coming soon! I call him when you not answer.” 

The tension she lost talking to Mia returns as Slade shifts in front of her, pulling his sword out of its holder. She needs to end this. Fast. She will not have her sweet, innocent daughter still on the phone when this all goes down. “I’ve got to go okay, baby.” 

“Cookie?” Mia asks, blinking up at her. 

“Why not?” Felicity answers, her smile coming a little easier when Mia lets out a yelp of excitement, which she totally understands, Oliver’s chocolate chip cookies are to die for. Her smile falls slightly at the poor choice of words, but thankfully Mia doesn’t notice. She feels the lump tighten in her throat; she has confidence that they will get out of this, but just in case it all goes horribly wrong. “I love you, Mia, you and William both. Can you tell him for me and give him a great big hug?” 

“Yes!” she says eagerly, “Thanks, mama! Love you. Tell daddy love you too!” 

Mia hangs up without another word, probably convinced that she’ll rescind the cookie offer if left to think about it too long, and Felicity lets out a sigh of relief before turning her attention back to Slade. She watches him, the uncomfortable set to his shoulders, the tense line of his mouth, and makes a gamble; she’s always done well at the casinos. “Are you really going to take those kids’ father away from them? I know you don’t want that.” 

“The man I knew wouldn’t have been a father worth having,” 

“Well, that’s the point,” Felicity tells him, not bothering to hide her exasperation, “The man you knew wouldn’t have been, I wouldn’t have married that man, let alone had a child with him, but he’s not that man anymore.” 

“Why should he get to see his kids grow up when I didn’t?” Slade asks, bitterness lining every inch of his body, “He doesn’t deserve that.” 

Every piece of her wants to argue that he does. She wants to yell and scream about just how great a father Oliver is, about how hard he’s had to work to be who he is now, and how even with all that work, she knows that sometimes he still looks at her and Mia and William believing that they would be better off without him, but she doesn’t. Slade doesn’t care that Oliver’s changed; he wants to hate him, and honestly, after everything that happened, she gets it. He can have that. What he can’t have, though, is her children's father. 

“It’s not about what he deserves,” she says softly, “It’s about them, and I think you already know that.” 

That’s the answer to her question from earlier; why here, why now? It wasn’t a coincidence that she was taken by him off a beach on vacation, nearly 12 hours from her home. He chose this. He’s been watching them, planning this, waiting until it was just her and Oliver to make his move. Why should he get to see his kids grow up when I didn’t? 

It all makes sense. _I lost everything_. 

Her excitement at figuring it all out overrides the unease of knowing that he’s been watching them (because ew, creepy much?), and she has to stop herself throwing her fist into the air in triumph. She forces herself to calm down and think through this logically, though. She's likely only going to get one chance to get through to him, so it needs to count. 

She tilts her head and looks at him, studying him. He looks tired, beaten down. She wonders how much of his look was a result of prison and how much of it finds its roots in the same place as Oliver’s trauma. Actually, the longer she looks, the more she sees of Oliver in the early days of their relationship, back when he spent most of his life wearing a mask that she only got to see through in brief glances; back when he was convinced that he had to be alone. 

“You know,” she starts slowly, taking her time to measure her words carefully, “kids don’t just stop needing their parents— I’m not sure if it’s a son or a daughter, maybe both, but you don’t have to lose them just because you lost time with them.” 

“You really are as smart as they say.” 

“Smarter actually,” she tells him with a smirk, “The pink lipstick and high heels tend to make people doubt it.” 

“They shouldn’t,” he responds, crossing his arms, “I can see why Oliver loves you. I’m sorry that you love him in return. Loving people like us only ends with heartbreak.” 

“I’m not,” she counters. Even now, tied to a chair, in the middle of nowhere, being held hostage, she’d still choose Oliver; she’ll choose him every time. “And it doesn’t have to. You could reach out; I’m sure your kid would love to hear from you.” 

“I can’t.” 

“Yes, you can!” she argues make, old irritation resurfacing, “God, I don’t understand you people. You hate being alone, but when you have the opportunity to not be alone, you won’t take it! Call him, show up at his door, don’t kidnap the wife of the guy who screwed you over a decade ago.” 

“You think it’s so easy, I can just pick up my phone and call him?” He scoffs, a dark and miserable sound, “Me and Oliver aren’t the same Felicity; he was given a second chance. I don’t have one.” 

“Why not?!” she yells, the fear of the situation finally making her crack, but honestly, it’s just so stupid. She was barely able to handle this with Oliver, and she loved him from almost the first moment. Here, in this moment, she can barely contain her resentment towards Slade. He ruined her trip. She was about to get some _dessert_. 

“Because he’s gone!” Slade roars at her, finally losing his careful composure. 

She falls back in her seat with a heavy thump. Frack, she hadn’t considered that. “Oh my god. I didn’t— I’m— you know my cat died when I was a kid— not that my cat dying is the same as your son; obviously, it’s not. I know that, and I’m not going to compare the grief because again, cat, son, but I— you know, I read this article once about the whole origin of the nine lives mythology— for cats, not people.” 

Finally, she manages to stop herself, wishing for an entirely different reason that Oliver would hurry and come save her. It’s been years since she’s put her foot in her mouth quite that badly. Or, you know, she could just die from embarrassment right here and save him the trouble. 

“He’s not dead.” 

Lifting her head up, looking at him incredulously. _Seriously?_

“Or at least I don’t believe so. His mother took him when I was serving my sentence, they changed their names. Vanished into thin air.” 

Her annoyance turns to sadness and then to dread because that’s an actual, logical outcome to blame Oliver for that she might not be able to talk him out of. Still, she never met a challenge she didn’t take, and this one isn’t going to be the exception; she just needs to think this through, but first, she’d better make sure she’s right since apparently, he’s vague with wording. “And you blame Oliver for it?” 

“Why wouldn’t I? If I never went away, she wouldn’t have taken him.” 

Yeah, exactly, Felicity thinks, trying to think of a way to fix this, but she doesn’t have to think hard. The answer is actually obvious. While he says they vanished without a trace, she knows that isn’t the case. It can’t be. No one just vanishes, not from her. “What if I could find him for you?” 

Turning her ring around on her finger, she watches tensely as a range of emotions flash across his face. First, he’s skeptical, then he’s reluctantly hopeful before finally, he advances several large steps towards her, and she stops looking at his face, letting out a squeak of surprise when he bends to a crouch with the blade back in his hand. 

“What...?” she starts to ask as he cuts the ties around her legs before snapping her mouth shut. She really shouldn’t be questioning the man who’s freeing her. Still, though, she thinks as she stands up on shaky legs when he steps back, is she just supposed to go now? At least last time this happened, they were clear that she could go without the threat of a bullet (or in this case, a sword) through the back. 

Several moments as she shifts awkwardly on her feet before he finally speaks again, an indescribable look on his face. “You should go.” 

“You’re not going to get any arguments from me,” she tells him, moving to the exit with only a little hesitation. He looks so sad, and once upon a time, he used to be someone who really mattered to Oliver despite what he might think now. She wants to help him, and maybe she will eventually, but right now, she needs to look after herself. Self-preservation instincts are a thing for a reason. 

“He doesn’t deserve you,” he calls out to her retreating form right before she’s about to open the door. 

She debates it for a second, knowing that she’d be smarter just to run now that she has the chance, but eventually stops. She turns to look at him over her shoulder, “He does, but you don’t have to believe it… my offer still stands, if you want to find your son just let me know. But like just email me,” she adds on with a nervous laugh. “We don’t need to go through this all again.” 

Slade shakes his head slightly, his mouth set into a grim line, “It’s too late.” 

When he doesn’t say anything else, she takes it as her cue to leave, opening the door and stepping through it. The bright light of the setting sun hits her eyes, the smell of the ocean fills her nose, and she takes what feels like her first true breath in hours. Somehow, miraculously, she made it out. Hysterical laughter threatens to bubble out of her chest, but she holds it in, looking around, and then she runs— really runs, her feet making huge divots in the sand. She runs like she’s never run before until she runs straight into a firm, hard chest. A very familiar warm, hard chest. 

_Oliver._

He’s here. Right here. Felicity wraps her arms around him tightly, burying her face in his chest, and taking a deep breath, the smell so much better than the saltiness of the ocean that she thought was great before. He smells like safety and love, hope, and home. She sags into his warmth, knowing that everything is going to be okay, not just because he’s here now, but because they are together. 

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” he asks frantically, running one hand along her back while the other finds its way into her hair. She can hear his heart hammering under her ear, knows that he must have been terrified, and she’ll reassure him more fully in a second. For now, she just lets out a hm of confirmation and keeps her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. She just needs a moment, “Felicity, honey, you’re shaking.” 

“No, I’m not,” she mumbles into his shirt. _Why would she be shaking?_ Everything is fine now, she did it, she managed to talk her way out of another hostage situation. No one was hurt. Really, it wasn’t that bad. Slade wasn’t that bad. 

“It was Slade,” Oliver says with a dangerous edge to his voice. The kind of edge that logically, she’s always known has existed but has never actually experienced. 

The reminder of it all bursts the bubble of peace around her; peace, she realizes as her mind catches up to the present, that probably never existed. Now that she’s paying attention, it’s clear that every single one of his muscles is as tense as a rock, and it’s been that way since the moment she ran into him. 

She pulls back to look at him, not leaving the circle of his arms, and he cups his hand on her cheek, his thumb whipping away a tear that she didn’t know had fallen. She can see the storm of emotions raging in his eyes, and part of her wants to close her eyes, to not see the anger and desperation in them when they should just be bright and happy, but she doesn’t. Instead, she reaches up a (definitely shaky) hand, mirroring his movement, “He wasn’t that bad.” 

“Yeah, you said that,” he tells her with a strange lack of emotion in his voice, pulling away from her hand and then taking a step back, “Which I don’t actually believe for a second. Where is he?” 

“He let me go,” she explains instead of answering his question. 

“He took you first,” Oliver tells her, his hand balled into a fist. “Suddenly, you were just gone, not in the room like you were supposed to be, not answering your phone. Then I get a call from Mia, saying that you wouldn’t answer, and I know you’d never—” he cuts off like the memory of it all is too much to handle, turning further into stone. “He took you. That’s enough to convict him. Where did he have you? I can probably pick up the trail.” 

“Why?” 

“Felicity,” he responds in that way of his, pressing his lips together and not quite looking her in the eyes. 

“No,” she says stubbornly, nearly stomping her foot in irritation because she just knows what he’s thinking. She can read his face even when he doesn’t want her to, that’s what five years of marriage, two kids, and nearly a decade of friendship will give you. _God, how did they get into this mess?_ It was supposed to be five days of bliss-filled happiness. “Why can’t you just let this go?” 

“Because I’m not going to risk it happening again!” Oliver yells, his careful control gone, “What if you can’t talk your way out of it next time. What if it’s William he takes? Or Mia?” 

“It’s not going to be any of us. It's not going to happen!” Felicity implores him, tears of frustration running down her face now, “I’m here, you’re here. Let’s just go home; just come home with me.” 

He steps forward, placing a kiss on her forehead. “I already called for the plane; it should be ready to go within the hour. Take it, go home to the kids, and I’ll meet you there once this is dealt with. I love you.” 

“And how are you going to _deal_ with this, Oliver?” she counters, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears, already knowing and hating his answer. 

“However, I have to,” he says solemnly. 

“Don’t go,” she begs. 

She doesn’t care about Slade— at least not more than in the general sense that she doesn’t want anyone dead— she cares about Oliver, and she knows what this will do to him. She can see how the shadows will come back to his eyes with full force, how the days where he believes that he doesn’t deserve to be with them will become more and more frequent. She can’t see the future, but she knows that if he does this, the guilt is going to eat him alive, and she doesn’t want that for him. 

By the time she opens her eyes, though, he’s already gone, disappeared through the trees, and back out onto the beach. She stands there in stunned silence for a moment, hurt and fear, wrestling for dominance inside of her until finally, an entirely different emotion wins out. 

Anger. 

Indignation fills her as she catches sight of her wedding ring sparkling in the sun. He doesn’t get to just do that. Five years ago, they stood up in front of everyone and promised forever, the two of them against the world for better or for worse. He doesn’t get to back out of that now. He doesn’t get to just walk away, tell her to go home, to be safe. They are a team. 

And she’s damn well going to make sure he remembers that. 

Getting back to the hut is a lot harder than running from it. She wanders through the jungle, struggling not to trip over fallen branches and groaning when her hair gets tangled in trees. It turns out that she and nature aren’t friends, something which she probably should have already known, but which she conveniently forgot when she went to book this trip. 

In the end, it’s not her navigation skills which leads her to her destination (no surprise there), but rather Oliver's voice, calling out loudly that tells her where to go. “Slade!” 

Incidentally, only a few dozen feet forward— she took the long hard path through the trees instead of across the sand because, of course, she did— so she is able to creep up behind Oliver just in time to see Slade’s reaction through the open door. 

“Oliver,” he responds, slowly lifting his head to look at him, taking him in before his eyes move past him and on to her. “Felicity.” 

Oliver whips around to see her growls like actually growls, which under different circumstances would be hot as hell, but right now just serves to frustrate her more. Especially when he has the audacity to say, “Whatever issues you have with me, you take them up with me. Leave Felicity out of it.” 

“He was!” she tells her husband in outrage before Slade has the chance to speak, “He let me go; we were fine. We could have just left and gone home but nope. No, you had to go play the hero. I am not some damsel in distress Oliver, I am your wife, which means you don’t get to just walk away for me even if it’s for a good reason.” 

She lets out a huff of breath, suddenly feeling a lot better now that she’s got that off her chest. The relief only intensifies when she looks into his eyes, and it’s clear that her rant has at least partially got through to him. The way he’s looking at her now is softer, more familiar— and okay, there’s guilt in them, which isn’t great, but there’s also pure love. She’s just starting to hope that maybe they can backtrack all of this, but then Slade moves, Oliver tenses up, and they are back at square one. 

Cursing Slade and his inability to keep his heavy, stupid man feet still for a second longer internally, Felicity tries to come up with a new plan to no avail. The air in the room is tense, suffocating almost. She’s really not sure how things could get worse, which if she was thinking clearly, she would have _known_ was a terrible thing to think because that’s always the moment things do get worse. 

Slade speaks, “You have quite the wife there, kid.” 

In an instant, Oliver is moving towards the man, to punch him, kill him, or just to threaten him, Felicity doesn’t know, but she’s not going to take the chance that it’s the most violent choice. She steps around him quickly, stopping him with a brightly painted fingernail to the chest. “Oliver, stop.” 

“Felicity, move,” he commands, low and dangerous, but she isn’t afraid. Maybe it’s stupid, maybe she’s foolishly trusting, but she knows he’s not going to hurt her. If he wanted to make her move, he could have easily done it— she’s small, and he’s practically made of muscle— and yet, his hands are still balled into fists at his sides rather than on her waist, swinging her out of the way. 

“No,” she tells him firmly, “I’d ask you not to do this for yourself, but I know that’s not going to be enough, so I’m asking you to let this go for _me_ ; for me and Will and Mia. I’m asking you to come home, to be my husband and their dad because I would rather live in a world where we have you than where we are perfectly safe.” 

“Felicity,” he says again, but this time it’s softer; this time he sounds like the man that she knows. Even though his body language relaxes, tension still remains. He’s on guard, ready to attack— to defend— and really, she can’t blame him. The guy who kidnapped her only hours ago is standing in front of them. 

She turns to him now, pressing her hand against Oliver’s arm when he gets even tenser at the move, but he doesn’t try to stop her, doesn’t make any objections so she addresses Slade plainly. “You’re not going to come after me again, right? Not going to go after the kids?” 

“No,” Slade answers her gruffly without a second of hesitation, and she turns to look at Oliver with an expression that clearly says, see? 

For a few seconds, she has hope that the rest of his wariness will melt away, and they will be able to get on the plane, go home, leaving all of this behind them, but then something in his eyes shift, and she knows that it’s not going to be that easy even though perhaps he wishes it were (which helps. Slightly). 

“Which is exactly what he would say even if he was going to do something,” he tells her with a sad smile, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. She’s prepared to argue the point with him, she’ll argue it until he’s finally willing to leave with her, but Slade speaks before she does. 

“You’ve done good, kid. Made a life for yourself that you should be proud of,” Slade tells Oliver before either of them can say anything else, and in an instant, she is reminded that once upon a time, before everything went to hell, Oliver and he had a relationship, not that un similar to father and son; at the very least, mentor and subject. She wonders how much having that relationship broken has added to Slade’s whole complex with his son, but before she can ponder it fully, Slade continues, “Be grateful for what you have, hold on to it tight because it can all vanish within a second.” 

Holding her breath, she doesn’t really expect anything to change, which is why it’s all the more surprising when it does. Oliver takes his eyes off her and turns to the man before him. She watches intently as something seems to change, as Oliver stops seeing Slade as a threat, but instead as a person who he once really cared for. Something must pass between them— she’s not sure what, and she doesn’t need to know— because when Oliver speaks again, there’s not even a hint of the animosity from before. Instead, he’s just calm and confident when he vows, “I am. I do.” 

“Good,” Slade tells him shortly, sparing one last glance at the two of them before walking past them, out the door, and into the setting sun.

&&&&&

_Let's not meet again,_ Felicity thinks, watching out the window as the island disappears into a spec in the ocean.

“What was that?” Oliver asks her. When she looks over at him, he’s wearing a fond smile, but she can see the effect the encounter has left on him, the shadows in his eyes are darker than she’s seen in years. She knows that every fear she had has come to pass even though he’s here with her. 

They will have to talk about it— about what Slade did, what he said. About the trauma from their collective past which Oliver hasn’t moved on from as much as either of them thought, and not to mention the very real fact that he was ready to just leave her to go on some half-assed mission of vengeance— but later. For now, she just wants to get home and hug her kids. For now, Felicity is going to be grateful that she still has her husband sitting across from her, even if he isn’t quite the person she is used to seeing. 

“I said that out loud?” 

“Mmm,” he hums in response, amusement and love outshining the self-loathing for the moment, “Not a fan of Lian Yu then?” 

Her face twists up into a look she’s sure is unattractive, but really, who could be a fan? “Not at all. We should have just gone back to Aruba, but the brochure looked so nice… it was supposed to be paradise damnit, and instead, it feels like we visited hell.” 

“More like purgatory,” Oliver muses back, looking out the window instead of at her, “Where your past mistakes never actually leave you.” 

_Or maybe, they are going to talk about this now,_ she thinks as she watches him, trying to come up with the right thing to say. “You were a kid, Oliver— sure, a selfish and arrogant kid, but a kid all the same— just trying to survive a mess that their parents left for them. Did you make a mistake? Probably. Was getting involved in a world of elite assassins also a mistake? Yeah.” 

He smiles slightly, and she feels the uncertainty lingering inside of her start to fade away. She knows him, knows how he thinks, and hopefully, what he needs. And well, if not, she’s at least going to try her hardest to do what she can. 

“All you can do is keep going forward, try and do better, try and make it better in whatever way you can,” she says with a shrug. It’s not like she doesn’t have her own skeletons in their (thankfully very large) closet, people who counted on her and then were let down. People who died because she let them pay the price for her. She hasn’t thought about Cooper in a long time, but it doesn’t make it any easier, make the guilt any less. “That’s all either of us can do.” 

When she meets his eyes again, it’s clear that he knows where her thoughts have taken her. He reaches out a hand over the table between them, which she eagerly takes, grabbing hold of him like she never wants to let go; she never wants to let go. That was really the point of the entire trip, time for just the two of them away from their busy life. She plays with his ring on his finger, tracing the smooth metal as she thinks about how grateful she is to have him. 

“I just wish I knew how to make it better,” Oliver tells her, tormented, “I can’t give him back a decade of life. I can’t make it so that he never goes to prison. Maybe if I could it would be different, but I can’t fix it.” 

“Maybe you can’t,” she says slowly, “but your super genius, incredibly brilliant wife on the other hand.” 

She expects to see him grinning at her, or at least half-smiling, but instead, he looks impossibly wary. “Please tell me that Smoak Tech isn’t dabbling with time machines.” 

“What?! No. Of course not,” she tells him dismissively before her brain starts to run wild with possibilities. She could probably do it if she tried; she and her team make up some of the smartest, most innovative thinkers of the century. Catlin would definitely have some thoughts… but no. She forces her brain back into the correct path, “I don’t think you need a time machine.” 

“Then how am I changing the past?” 

“You’re not,” she responds simply, thinking for a second before continuing, “I don’t think he’s as much angry about the past as angry about how the past is affecting his present.” At Oliver’s blank stare, she lets out a huff and then goes into more detail. “He got out of prison only to learn that the family he had when he went in was gone, up and vanished without a trace. His wife? Girl? Baby mama? Whoever took his son disappeared, and he hasn’t been able to find them.” 

“Wow,” Oliver breaths out in shock, trying to absorb the information, “no wonder he hates me. It’s what Samantha tried to do but so much worse. Will was at least young, he was only just starting to know the difference when we got things sorted out. Slade’s son must have been a teenager. I remember Slade talking about him, I think; he was only a handful of years younger than me.” 

“Yeah,” she agrees, “As far as villain origin stories go, it’s a pretty good one— not that, of course, there’s no excuse for being a villain,” she quickly corrects, “Killing people is bad even when they deserve it. That’s what got you into this entire mess in the first place.” 

“You think you can find him?” he asks, bypassing her rather unfortunate ramble with the kind of ease that reminds her why she loves him. 

“Definitely.” He grins back at her like he expected nothing less, and she is reminded of another reason she loves him; really, there are too many to list and many that have nothing to do with how he looks doing the salmon ladder. She pushes thoughts like those away and focuses her attention back on him, valiantly ignoring the knowing smirk on his face. “As long as you want me too.” 

“Yes,” Oliver answers with the kind of sureness that she loves to see in him. “It doesn’t make up for everything, but it’s a start. He should have a chance to get the life he wants back too.” 

She knows that Oliver will never think of himself as good; he carries the burden of too much on his shoulders to believe that, but as she observes the eagerness in his eyes to try and right a past wrong, to make someone’s life better, she knows that he’s undoubtedly good. Even if he’ll never believe it, he’s a hero in her eyes. It’s been a hard journey for him to get where he is today— for both of them really— but they worked through it, fought through the ugly to get where they are today. Their life, this happiness, wasn’t given to them, but that doesn’t make it any less a gift. 

It’s the kind of gift that they’d both like others to find. 

With that in mind, she opens her laptop and gets to work. Hours bleed into one and other as she searches the web, doing what she does best while Oliver doses across from her until finally, just as they are about to land back in Starling, she has a name, address, and phone number. She hits enter as the captain requests for them to brace for landing, sending all the information she collected to the email address she found with one single line as the message. 

_It's never too late._

Smiling, she meets Oliver’s eyes as she closes her computer. He reaches out his hand, and she takes it. The light from the rising sun catches the shine of their rings, and her smile grows. No, it’s never too late; they are proof of that.


End file.
